Brueder_, p. 46.

[62-2] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 33: Washington, 1855.
Pacific Railroad Docs.

[62-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, i. p. 359.

[62-4] In Schoolcraft, _Ibid._, iv. p. 642.

[63-1] Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In
Onondaga the radicals are _onigonra_, spirit, _hio_ beautiful, _ahetken_
ugly. _Dictionnaire Francais-Onontague, edite par Jean-Marie Shea_: New
York, 1859.

[64-1] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_.

[64-2] Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, and
an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive form, but to
explain their meaning.

[65-1] Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios
de Guat._, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_,
p. 189.

CHAPTER III.

THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS.

The number FOUR sacred in all American religions, and the key to
their symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears
constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal
Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four
ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering
the terrestrial Paradise.--Associations grouped around each
Cardinal Point.--From the number four was derived the symbolic
value of the number _Forty_, and the _Sign of the Cross_.

Every one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have
noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these
numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of
traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected
with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions,
that of the Jews among the rest, _seven_ was the most sacred number, and
after it, _four_ and _three_. The most cursory reader must have observed
in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures,
occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is
said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been
clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest
history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the
religious sentiment. Only one of them, the FOUR, has any prominence in
the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal,
that at a very early period in my studies I fe